By Hill Harper
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009
“I am calling this book The Conversation because my hope is that these words that originate with me at my laptop will find their way to the book in your hands, pushing you and inspiring you to talk with your friends and families. I hope eventually to extend that dialogue across the barricades that men and women have erected to protect themselves from each other. We are growing jaded, cynical, tired, and world-weary before our time. We are expecting less and demanding less, and those lower expectations are making us unfulfilled and taking us farther from each other. The walls between us do not serve us.”
- Hill Harper, The Conversation (excerpt from Introduction)
The actor and scholar has come out with his third book. This time Hill Harper focuses on the state of the Black family, particularly the impact of the state of communication (or lack thereof) between black men and women on black love. I got an advanced copy and it doesn’t disappoint. This is one book to put on your reading list for the Fall.
Before getting into the purpose behind Hill Harper’s new book perhaps we should take a hint from one of his past movies. A small, seemingly insignificant, scene from a 1997 independent movie called Hav Plenty sets the table for many of the issues in Harper‘s new book.
Roughly five minutes into the film the protagonist, Lee Plenty (Christopher Scott Cherot), makes eye-contact with a beautiful black woman at a gas station. Just as she enters her car, Lee catches her attention, flashes a cheesy grin and waves at the sistah. Her response? Well, let’s just say it’s not so kind. In a brief yet heavy moment of contemplation the woman casts her glance downward only to look back at Lee in complete disgust. In one smooth yet dismissive motion her eyes roll to the back of her head. . . indeed, so far back that they cause her neck to follow suit. The message is clear: goodbye opportunity, hello could shoulder. Lee’s left with a confused look on his face as the audience hears the woman‘s car drive off in the distance. . . End scene.
This scene is symbolic of a thousands similar situations where black men and women operate from a position of distrust and low expectations of each other. Both Lee and the woman had sized each other up in a matter of seconds. Blame it on racial stereotypes. . . blame it on sexual politics . . . blame it on sheer ignorance, but for whatever reason that 10 second scene encapsulates a disturbing pattern that exists amongst parts of our community. At issue is the cultivation of distrust between black men and women. At issue is the lack of productive and healthy communication between black men and black women. And these are just a few of the issues Hill Harper tries to tackle in The Conversation.
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